Sandra Benes - Series Two

Series Two

One of few featured characters carried over to the second series, Sandra's character was downgraded in the show and appeared in only half the episodes. In an interview, Zienia Merton revealed that the producers elected to not offer her a contract for the second series. After three episodes, unhappy with her new 'day player' status and reduced participation, she left the show to pursue other interests. For the next several episodes, she was replaced by a new character named Yasko (Japanese actress Yasuko Nagazumi) without explanation.

Mid-series, she was persuaded to return by Barbara Bain, who was concerned that upcoming episodes (written to be produced concurrently by dividing the regular cast between them) would not feature any actors from series one. She was also promised an increased role in all subsequent episodes.

The character returned in 'Catacombs of the Moon' and was now exclusively known as 'Sahn'. (Even her security badge listed her as only 'Sahn'.) The use of the diminutive 'Sahn' caused confusion in some of the episode novelizations, where the authors erroneously made her character male due to misinterpreting this name change as a different character. (An examination of the script for the fifth episode 'Journey to Where' reveals amended script pages using 'Sahn', indicating the name change had been planned to start in this story had the actress appeared in the episode.)

In the latter episodes of the second series, Sahn was featured more centrally—and demonstrated a never before seen expertise in electronics. In 'The Beta Cloud', she instructed astronaut Bill Fraser how to construct a high-voltage cable barrier to defend Alpha's Life Support Center against an alien adversary. She also conducted a systems analysis of Alpha's main computer hardware during 'The Seance Spectre' when searching for a suspected malfunction.

Sahn again disappeared without explanation at the end of Series Two when Zienia Merton departed the series after receiving the offer of a film role and made the (correct) assumption there would be no future for Space: 1999. American actress Alibe Parsons would appear as Sahn's replacement/substitute for the final three episodes playing a Command Center operative named Alibe.